Researchers are developing a nitric oxide related drugs to restore and protect brain function among Alzheimer's patients. The same drug class also holds promise for colon cancer treatment and prevention. A nurse helps an alzheimer-suffering patient
© AFP/File Jean-Philippe KsiazekOctober 22, 2008, (Sawf News) – A team of researchers had proposed a dozen years ago that delivering nitric oxide to the brain would be beneficial in combating neurodegenerative diseases, since nitric oxide is a messenger molecule essential for learning and memory.
Gregory Thatcher, professor at University of Illinois at Chicago College of Pharmacy, who was part of that research has secured a four-year, $1.87 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to continue research into discovering a new drug class that will treat Alzheimer's disease.
"But this wasn't a popular notion, because nitric oxide is a free radical gas and toxic at higher concentrations," said Thatcher.
"But then again, so is oxygen, and it's also rather important for life. It's a question of understanding the chemistry and engineering the molecule to deliver nitric oxide bioactivity, but also additional activity to restore and protect brain function."
There are currently no drugs to slow the rate of progression of the disease. "Even new drugs that effectively treat the symptoms would be of enormous benefit to patients and caregivers," Thatcher said.
How the inhibition of the enzyme calpain can be a therapeutic target for Alzheimer's is also part of the NIH study for which Thatcher is assisting Dr. Ottavio Arancio of Columbia University.
Arancio, who in turn is assisting Thatcher on his new research project, recently showed the importance of controlling nitric oxide signaling in restoring normal brain function in animal models of Alzheimer's.
Thatcher is also the beneficiary of a new five-year, $1.6 million NIH grant to study nitric oxide chimera drugs in colon cancer chemoprevention.
"It might seem strange that nitric oxide delivery could benefit both the brain and colon," Thatcher said. But nitric oxide bound to aspirin -- or nitro-aspirin -- was in clinical trials for colon cancer chemoprevention before the trial was stopped for safety concerns, he said.
"Our brain-targeted nitric oxide chimera drugs were the first to be studied in humans, and although we did not pioneer the nitric oxide related drugs for colon cancer, we believe that they hold promise."
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